Faggot is hateful speech

Perhaps Annie Wagner needs a reality check! [Mail, “What do you mean, faggot?” 3/7/02]How dare she try to intellectualize hate speech! Why not try substituting the words nigger, bitch, or kyke and find out where she stands?Until she has been called a queer or faggot and has been threatened and abused or beaten up or stalked by people who use those words, she truly has no room to philosophize about the term faggot.Ask a black person how much fun it is to be called a nigger, or a Jewish person how intellectual it is to be called a kyke....Truth is, hate speech is hate speech. Only when one does not define oneself as the object of that speech does one feel free to expound on the literary idiosyncrasies of that speech.If Dan Savage referred to each of his correspondents as "Dear Nigger..." watch the intellectuals line up to decry his use of the word. I maintain the use of the word faggot can be argued intellectually because gay people are discriminated against routinely in thought, word, and deed on a daily basis.Further, when gay people are finally awarded some sense of equality under the law, it will no longer be fine for small minded people to consider the use of the word faggot or any other hate speech acceptable.